Here is a video of my remarks at the Wal-Mart annual meeting at the Bud Walton Arena in Fayetteville, Arkansas in support of our shareholder proposal asking Wal-Mart for a report on its lobbying priorities. Here is the text of my remarks:I was here three years ago. I warned that Lee Scott, our CEO, was betraying the legacy of Wal-Mart. I warned that he was embracing controversial political causes to appease Left-wing activists and corrupt unions.
Looks like I was right. And Mike Duke is even worse.
Wal-Mart endorsed ObamaCare and its employer mandate. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the National Retail Federation all opposed this mandate.
More importantly, the American people don’t want ObamaCare. It will raise costs, kill jobs, reduce accessibility, and explode the number of uninsured.
It is bad enough that Wal-Mart endorsed something so ruinous, but it is even worse that it did so jointly with the corrupt Service Employees International Union — SEIU.
In several parts of the country, SEIU was indistinguishable from the radical group ACORN before it had to disband.
Mr. Duke, how can you associate the good name of this company with such a bad idea, and how can you lie down with such dogs? I can see the fleas from here.
If Wal-Mart customers have any money left after paying health care premiums, maybe they can go shopping.
Oops, I forgot people also have to pay their utility bills.
Wal-Mart has also endorsed Cap and Trade, which the public is also against. Barack Obama has promised that Cap and Trade will “skyrocket” our electric bills.
One study says Cap and Trade would hike electricity rates 90 percent, destroy over a million jobs, and reduce U.S. gross domestic product by nearly $10 trillion over the next 25 years.
How did Wal-Mart get on THIS bandwagon? It’s called global warming. Al Gore came to Bentonville and convinced Lee Scott that the sky was falling. Mr. Scott even would claim that carbon dioxide causes hurricanes.
Since that time, we’ve had the Climategate scandal. Some of the science behind global warming was faked. And temperatures are not going up much. In fact, some evidence suggests they are going down.
But who am I to criticize Mr. Scott. After all, he’s a smart guy. Just got himself elected to the board of Goldman Sachs.
Wal-Mart was once synonymous with entrepreneurship and the American dream. Some people now think Wal-Mart supports these Socialist schemes because smaller competitors will be less able to afford the costs of compliance, and will have to go out of business.
It will be just like Europe, where free enterprise is slowly dying. Big government and big business get in bed to create more centralized, controlled markets. But ordinary people get screwed.
Mr. Duke, the American people are saying NO to Socialism. Which side are you on? You are going to have to decide.
Related:
Former Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott Belittled at Goldman Sachs Annual Meeting
SEC Rules Wal-Mart Cannot Exclude NLPC Shareholder Proposal on ObamaCare, Cap and Trade
No Surprise Here: Wal-Mart Endorses Obama’s Health Care Mandate
Flaherty: Wal-Mart Embraces Obama Health Care to Appease Unions (CNBC video)
Is Wal-Mart Too Liberal? (Newsweek)